The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1887-04-09
.SHAMROCKS FROM ERIN.
THE EXILE 0F THE GAEL.
BY JOHN BOYLE o'REnLY.

THE following poem was read at the cele
bration of the 15Oth anniversary of the Irish
Charitable Society of Boston.]
It is sweet to rejoice for day
For day that is reached at last!
1t iswell for wanderers in new lands,
Slow climbers toward lofty mountain pass,
Yearning with hearts and eyes strained ever
upward,
To pause, and rest, on the summit
To stand between two limitIess outloJks-
Behind them, winding path through familiar
pains and ventures;
Before them, the streams unbrdged and the
wales untraveled.
What shall they co nobler than mark their
passage,
With kindly hearts, mayhap for kindred to
follow?
What shall they do wiser than pile cafrn
With stones from the wayside, that their tracks
and names
BE not blown from the hills, like sands, and
their story be lost for ever?
*'Hither,'' the cairn shall tell, ''Hither they
came and rested!''
<'Whi,her p the searcher shall ask. with qucs-
ttOnlng eyes on their future.
Hiher and Whittier! o Maker of Nations!
Hither and Whittier the sea speaks,
Heaving; the forest speaks, dying the Sum-
mer whispers,
Like sentry giving up the watchward, to the
muffled Winter,
to the Sun;
o;r1,f t1,e,c fo,o
interf1ash the signal.
H1ther and Whittier, the exiles' cairn on the
hill speaks
Yea, as loudly as the sea and the earth and the
stars.
The heart is earth's exile; the soul is hea-
ven's;
And God has made no higher mystery for stars.
Hither-from home! sobs the torn flower on
the river:
Walls the river itself as it enters the Litter
ocean;
Means the iron in the furnace at the Fremont
ton Of melting;
Cries the scattered grain in Spring at The pass
age of the harrow.
In the iceberg is frozen the rains dream of ex-
lie from the fields;
The shower fails signing fer the opaline hills of
cloud;
And the clouds on the bare mountains weep
their daughter-love for the sea.
Exile in Gods alchemy! Nations He forms
Mixing their streHgih and their tenderness;
Tempering pride with shame and victory with
af1liction:
Netting their courage their faith and their for
titude-
Timing their genesis to the worlds needs
'.what have We brought to our Nation-building.
Sonsof the Gael?
What is your burden or guerdon from old In
INSTALL?
Here build we higher and deeper than men
ever built before:
And we raise III, 5hinar tower, but q temple
forevermore.
What have We brought from Erin that hapless
land could spare?
Her tears, defeats, and mlseries? Are these,
indeed, your share?
Are the mothers caoine and the banshees cry
your music for our song2
Have We come to feast with withered wreath
and memory of wrong?
your Banda of the Seas?
o, where in our House OF Triumph shall hang
such gifts as these p
O, Soul, wing forth! what answer across the
main is heard?
From burdened ships. and exiled ips-write
down. write down the word!
..No treason we bring from Erin-nor bring we
shame nor guilt!
The sword we hold may he broken, but we have
not dropped the hilt?
The wreath we bear to Columbia is twisted of
thorns, not bays;
And the songs we singa saddened by thoughts
of desolate days.
But the hearts we bring for Freedom are
washed in the surge of tears;
And we claim our right by a Peoples fight out
living athousand yearsy'
"What bring We else to the Building?'
20, willing hands 70 toll;
Strong natures tuned to harvest-song, and
bound to the kindly soil;
Bold pioneers for the wilderness. defenders in
the field
The sons of race of soldiers who never
learned to yield.
Young hearts with duty brimming-as faith
makes sweet the due;
Their truth to ne their witness they cannot he
false to your
-sWhat send ye else, old Mother, to raise eur
mighty wall?
For we must build against Kings and Wrongs u
fortress never to fall?''
II send in cradle and bosom, wise brain aud
eloquent tongue.
Whose crowns should engild my GROWING,
whose songs for me should be sung.
o, flowers unknown, from lonely fields, my
daughters with hearts aglow.
With pulses worm with sympathies, with
bosoms pure as snow
smile through tears as the clouds unroll-my
widening river that runs!
My lost ones grown in radiant growth-proud
mothers of free-born sons!
Ny seed of sacrifice ripens apace! The Ty-
rants cure is disease:
My strength that was dead like forest is
spread beyond the distant seas ~
ut is well, ay well, old Erin! The sens you
give to me
lo.31 iv,f o~